With betting available all year round, and plenty to look forward to, Cheltenham talk never goes away and here we have some great free bets that you can use if you want to place wagers on the greatest National Hunt racing festival of them all.
The 2023 Cheltenham Festival will take place on 14-17 March, 2023, and racing fans will be eagerly anticipating their return.
As March 14th 2023 draws closer keep your eyes peeled on this page. It really is your one-stop-shop for absolutely everything Cheltenham!
Cheltenham Betting Offers 2023
The bookies always up to their game when it comes to Cheltenham and you’ll find dozens upon dozens of betting offers available.
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Not only will you find tons of Cheltenham offers, but also plenty variations of offers too. For a punter, it might as well be Christmas!
Best Cheltenham Offers for Existing Customers
The Cheltenham Festival really is the perfect time to open up a new betting account. With so many fantastic promotions and free bets being offered it’s also a great opportunity for existing customers who can take advantage of a few free bets too. Online bookmakers are falling over themselves to get your business and in doing so give away all sorts of amazing offers over the four-day Festival – such as ‘Money Back if Your Horse Loses’. Combined they make it hard to lose money. In fact, if you’re shrewd you can even guarantee yourself a profit.
Best Cheltenham Bookmaker
While it’s always a good idea to have multiple betting accounts giving you access to more Cheltenham free bets and offers, perhaps the best all-round Cheltenham bookmaker is bet365. Not only were they the first bookie to offer ‘NRNB’ terms (Non Runner No Bet), they also offer ‘Best Odds Guaranteed’ on all Cheltenham races, and you can also pick up risk free bets if you back a Cheltenham winner at 4/1 or more in any live ITV race with their Feature Race 4/1 Offer.* bet365 also live streams all Cheltenham races via their website.
Types of Cheltenham Offers
There’s a wide range of Cheltenham offers available both in the run-up and during the Cheltenham Festival. The good old free bet is the mainstay but there are also enhanced odds offers, money back specials and ‘Non Runner No Bet’ (NRNB) markets for ante post betting.
Among the most popular Cheltenham betting offers delivered by bookies are:
Cheltenham Ante Post Offers
Ante Post offers give punters the opportunity to lock in good value bets early. Ante post is essentially placing a bet on a future Cheltenham race and you’ll find the likes of Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and William Hill have a large number of early ante post offers available for the vast majority of Cheltenham Festival races.
Non Runner No Bet (‘NRNB’)
This market is perfect for those getting their Cheltenham bets in early. Essentially, the offer means you’ll receive your stake back should the horse you back not run in the race.
You’ll find it on most bookmaker’s sites in the build up to Cheltenham.
Cheltenham Money Back Specials
Money-back specials are great offers, well worth keeping an eye out for if there’s a big favourite in the race. What they do is offer you your stake back (usually as a free bet) if your bet loses and a certain outcome does occur.
In horse racing this is usually if the favourite wins and your horse is 2nd or sometimes if your horse loses by a narrow margin. So, for example, Coral may offer money-back on any losing bet if your horse loses by a head or less.
Enhanced Odds Offers
Enhanced odds are a type of odds that boost your profits and are always offered by the big names come Cheltenham.
This will usually be on the favoured horses in order to win your custom. So what you might find is a bookie will boost a horse priced 4/5 to 5/1 to lure punters in but the maximum stake allowed will be set quite low.
Cheltenham Free Bets Offers
The most common type of Cheltenham betting offer is a good old free bet. Usually offered to new customers, you’ll receive free stake money added to your bankroll which can then be played on Cheltenham markets.
You’ll find dozens of these from no deposit free bets to 100% match bonuses on your first deposit.
Also check back with us as the new year hits to get all the best Cheltenham free bet offers.
Tote Betting on Cheltenham
Tote betting is an offer and type of bet in which punters select a series of winners across the day and put their stake into a prize pool.
The prize pool is then split between the punters who correctly predicted the most winners.
Cheltenham 2023 Betting Specials
The offers don’t stop there either, with plenty of other specials offered in the build up to the Festival.
Among the other betting offers available include…
Acca Insurance
Accumulator insurance is the perfect offer if you’re placing an accumulator across a day at Cheltenham. What it does is offer you a safety net and returns your stake as a free bet should just one horse on your accumulator let you down.
Faller Insurance
You never know what’s going to happen in horse racing, which makes faller insurance a popular offer among many punters.
What the offer does is return your stake as a free bet should the horse you back fall during the race. It can happen to even the favourite, so make sure you’re wager is protected.
Lucky 15/31/63
These are more types of strategy, with Lucky 15 (or 31/63) covering all angles of a bet. It’s a wager on four selections and is made up of four singles, six doubles, four trebles and a four-fold accumulator.
This is aimed to make a large profit if all four selections win, and still profit if only a selection of them pass the post first.
Best Odds Guaranteed
Playing best odds guaranteed markets gives you the opportunity to lock in the best price on the horse you wish to back. You may back a horse at 4/1, but if the horse’s starting price is then 6/1 and it wins, you’ll be paid out at the 6/1 odds.
Best Cheltenham Trainer Odds
There’s also a betting market for ‘Best Cheltenham Trainer’ with many bookmakers offering odds on this market. Winning the best trainer award at the Cheltenham Festival is one of the most prestigious accomplishments a trainer can land in horse racing.
Cheltenham Betting Markets
As race week draws closer you’ll find dozens of Cheltenham betting markets to enjoy, and even now you’ll find plenty to make a few bob on.
You’ll often find better Cheltenham odds around now, with less form having been taken into account.
The ‘To Win Any Race’ At Cheltenham betting market is often a good route to go down at this early stage as you won’t find out which races are running until later in the new year.
You will find odds on almost every race at the Cheltenham Festival already though, from The Gold Cup to Stayers Hurdle odds and the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle odds.
Naturally, it may become the case at this early stage your horse might not end up running at all. Plenty of bookmakers will give you Non Runner No Bet markets, which essentially means you won’t lose out.
This means it’s never too early to enjoy the Cheltenham betting markets and back your horse at good odds before they could get slimmer.
The variety of betting market to choose from are:
- Bet on a Horse to Win or “Each-Way” The simplest and most straightforward of horse racing bets. Pick any horse to win the race or go “each way”. Each way betting is essentially 2 bets (win & place) and the number of places the bookies will pay out on varies depending on number of runners and type of race. Usually it’s the first 3 horses home but in big handicap races this extends to the first four and in some cases the bookmakers will offer ‘enhanced place terms’ where you can get five or sometimes even six places or more. So watch out for these!
- Forecast / Tricast Betting This type of horse race bet asks you to make predictions of the 1-2 or 1-2-3 horses home. Predicting the first two horses is known as the Forecast and predicting the first three is known as the Tricast. You can ‘perm’ several horses into combination bets to increase your chances of winning. For example 3 horses in a combination Tricast is 6 bets in total, as there are 6 possible permutations. As you can imagine, a winning Tricast bet can pay very handsome returns.
- Match Betting This type of bet pits two specific horses in same race against one other in what is known as a ‘Match Bet’ and you are betting on which horse will do best out of these two horses. For example, if your horse finishes 5th and the other horse finishes 8th then you win.
- Placepot & Scoop6 Pool Betting The Placepot bet asks you to predict a horse to finish placed in the first 6 races, and the Scoop6 is a jackpot type bet that needs you predict 6 winners. These bets are ‘Tote pool’ type bets where all the stakes go into a big pool and then are re-distributed out to the winners in the form of a dividend. The fewer winners the bigger the payout will be. These are difficult bets to win but the rewards can be rewarding! If the Scoop6 is not won it is rolled over to the next day for an even bigger jackpot.
- Top Festival Trainer Betting Markets A special bet on which trainer will end the Cheltenham Festival with the most winners. These novelty bets can give you an interest over the entire Festival as you can cheer on every horse of your chosen trainer. Irish trainers have dominated in recent years with Gordon Elliott winning the last 2 years and Willie Mullins for the 4 years prior to that.
- Top Festival Jockey Betting Markets As above but this time we are betting on which jockey will win the most races during the 4-day Cheltenham Festival. Davy Russell was the Top Cheltenham Festival Jockey last year with 4 wins but Ruby Walsh has dominated this in recent years having won the top jockey accolate an incredible 10 times since 2006.
- GB vs Ireland Prestbury Cup Winners The Prestbury Cup, named after Prestbury Park on which the famous Cheltenham racecourse sits, is given to the winning most nation over the 4-day Cheltenham Festival. This competition is a straight match between Great Britain and Ireland.
- Horses to ‘Win ANY Race’ at the Festival Often trainers do not know which Cheltenham races to target their horses at until nearer the time and so will enter them into multiple Cheltenham Festival races. This can be a bit of a headache for ante post betting. However, some bookmakers will offer special odds on horses to win any race at the Festival thereby taking the guesswork out of which race a horse will ultimately run in.
What & When Is This Year’s Cheltenham Festival?
The 2023 Cheltenham Festival takes place over four days, between Tuesday 14th of March and Friday 17th of March, attracting the very best jumps horses from the UK and Ireland.
Taking place at Prestbury Park in Cheltenham, Gloucester, it is the highlight of the National Hunt season and widely regarded as one of the best horse racing Festivals anywhere in the world.
The Festival is centred around four main Championship races, the Champion Hurdle, the Queen Mother Champion Chase, the Stayers Hurdle and the highlight of the week, the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Cheltenham 2023 Race Schedule & Racecards
Our Cheltenham Festival page is here to keep you up to date with all the latest news, top tips and value odds for the big week, so make sure to bookmark this page and check back regularly.
Here is the full schedule including links to dedicated race pages to each of the races (odds & racecards) and updated results:
| Time | Champion Hurdle Day - Cheltenham Day 1 Tuesday 14th March |
|---|---|
| 13:30 | Supreme Novices’ Hurdle |
| 14:10 | Arkle Novices’ Chase |
| 14:50 | Ultima Handicap Chase |
| 15:30 | Champion Hurdle |
| 16:10 | Mares’ Hurdle |
| 16:50 | Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle |
| 17:30 | National Hunt Novices’ Chase |
| Time | Ladies Day Races – Cheltenham Day 2 Wednesday 15th March |
|---|---|
| 13:30 | Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle Race |
| 14:10 | Festival Novices’ Chase |
| 14:50 | Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle |
| 15:30 | Queen Mother Champion Steeple Chase |
| 16:10 | Cross Country Chase |
| 16:50 | Grand Annual Handicap Chase |
| 17:30 | Champion Bumper |
| Time | St. Patrick’s Day Races – Cheltenham Day 3 Thursday 16th March |
|---|---|
| 13.30 | Turners Novices’ Chase |
| 14:10 | Pertemps Handicap Hurdle Final |
| 14:50 | Ryanair Steeple Chase |
| 15:30 | Stayers’ Hurdle |
| 16:10 | Festival Plate Handicap Chase |
| 16:50 | Mares Novices’ Hurdle |
| 17:30 | Kim Muir Challenge Cup Handicap Chase |
| Time | Gold Cup Day Races – Cheltenham Day 4 Friday 17th March |
|---|---|
| 13:30 | JCB Triumph Hurdle |
| 14:10 | County Handicap Hurdle Race |
| 14:50 | Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle Race |
| 15:30 | Cheltenham Gold Cup |
| 16:10 | Foxhunter Steeple Chase Challenge Cup |
| 16:50 | Liberthine Mares Chase |
| 17:30 | Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle |
Cheltenham Live Streaming
There are plenty of different ways you can watch the Cheltenham Festival if you are in the UK, and you can do it completely legally too. Sky customers will get round the clock coverage all week from the festival from Sky At The Races, with presenters, punters, experts, tipsters and jockeys all set to feature on the bill to give you the very best possible experience from your couch. If not, then you can get terrestrial coverage on ITV4, where they will have intermittent shows across the four days. For you internet/app streamers out there, the best place to go is Bet365, where they will also have also have all the bases covered, as well as offering you great odds and free bets throughout the week.
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Previous Cheltenham Gold Cup Winners:
- 2022: A Plus Tard - Trainer: Henry de Bromhead, Jockey: Rachel Blackmore
- 2021: Minella Indo – Trainer: Henry de Bromhead, Jockey: Jack Kennedy
- 2020: Al Boum Photo – Trainer: Willie Mullins, Jockey: Paul Townend
- 2019: Al Boum Photo – Trainer: Willie Mullins, Jockey: Paul Townend
- 2018: Native River – Trainer: Colin Tizzard, Jockey: Richard Johnson
- 2017: Sizing John – Trainer: Jessica Harrington, Jockey: Robbie Power
- 2016: Don Cossack – Trainer: Gordon Elliott, Jockey: Bryan Cooper
- 2015: Coneygree – Trainer: Mark Bradstock, Jockey: Nico De Boinville
- 2014: Lord Windermere – Trainer: Jim Culloty, Jockey: Davy Russell
Cheltenham Trials Day Betting
Before the Cheltenham Festival takes place in March, you’ll get the chance to see some of the key runners on Cheltenham Trials Day. Not only is it the chance to take advantage of a few Cheltenham free bets early on, it’s also a great opportunity to study the form ahead of race day in March.
How To Use Cheltenham Free Bets
Most bookmakers today have sites that are incredibly easy to navigate and you’ll have no problem cashing in your Cheltenham Festival free bet.
How you use your free bet can vary from bookmaker to bookmaker, with some restrictions being in place when it comes to both spending it and withdrawing any winnings.
However, those with another bookmaker account or an account with a betting exchange are able to lock-in a profit from free bets without any risk. You can calculate how much profit can be locked into your free bets with our Back/Lay Hedging Calculator.
Restrictions on free bets vary between bookmakers and it is in your best interests to know what to look for. It can save time and disappointment later down the line and will help you make the best of the your Cheltenham free bets.
What to Know Before Using Your 2023 Cheltenham Festival Free Bets
- Free Bet stakes are not included in returns: It’s not standard practice for bookmakers to include your Free Bet stake in any potential winning returns you claim. Typically you will only receive the winnings from your Free Bet.
- Minimum Odds: The majority of Free Bet Deposit Bonuses come with a minimum odds qualifying requirement that usually varies between about 1/5 (1.20) and 6/4 (2.50).
- Rollover Requirement: Bookmakers will often have a rollover requirement on your initial Free Bet Deposit Bonus that stipulates that your initial Free Bet bonus must be wagered a set number of times before you’re permitted to withdraw any potential Free Bet winnings.
- Free Bet Expiry: Any Free Bets will almost always come with an expiry date. These cut off dates vary, but are usually within either 7 or 30 days of them being first awarded.
- Bet Type Restrictions: Free Bets can almost always be used as a single bet and they are also usually fine to use in accumulators.
- Betting product restrictions: A Free Bet is usually restricted to be used in the specific area it was allocated for so, for example, a sportsbook Free Bet will only be acceptable for use in the bookmaker sportsbook and can’t be used in the casino or poker room.
FAQs
When is Cheltenham 2023?
The 2023 Cheltenham Festival takes place from Tuesday 14th March (first race 1.20pm) and ends on Friday 17th March (last race 4.50pm).
What time is the Cheltenham Gold Cup?
The Cheltenham Gold Cup of 2023 is due off at 3.05pm on Friday 17th March.
How to bet on Cheltenham?
The most popular bets at Cheltenham are the straight win bet or each way bets. Each way bets consist of two bets, one to win and one to place. So a £5 each way bet will cost £10 in total, but you will get a return if your horse is placed. There are other more exotic bets such as doubles, trebles and Lucky 15’s. These combined multiple bets roll up with the winnings from one horse going onto the next, and can lead to some big payouts if successful!
Who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup?
In 2022, A Plus Tard (3/1) ridden by Rachel Blackmore won the Cheltenham Gold Cup for Henry de Bromhead, who was winning the race for the second consecutive year after Minella Indo won the race in 2021.
Where is the Cheltenham racecourse?
Cheltenham racecourse is on Evesham Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 4SH, England.
Where to watch Cheltenham live?
The Cheltenham Festival is broadcast live on ITV and the Racing UK channel. You can also watch Cheltenham races live at most major UK bookmakers such as bet365, Coral and Betfred. In some cases you may be required to place a small qualifying bet to watch. (usually £1 minimum)
Can I watch Cheltenham on mobile?
Yes. There are mobile apps for ITV Racing (free to air), Sky Sports Racing (free to air) and Racing UK (subscription) that will allow you to watch Cheltenham races and trial races live on your mobile devices or tablets. There are also Cheltenham apps and bookmaker radio stations such as bet365, William Hill, Paddy Power and Betfair which can be accessed directly via their betting apps or sites. They cover horse racing and provide live Cheltenham commentaries, and in some cases live pictures.
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